zlacker

>>JimDab+(OP)
I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever lies ahead without any concern whatsoever, and learn it the hard way.

It’s a bit tragic that Ilya and company achieved the exact opposite of what they intended apparently, by driving those they attempted to slow down into the arms of people with more money and less morals. Well.

>>9dev+w9
The idea that OpenAI people whose focus is building an AGI that can replace humans in every viable human activity will create a more ethical outcome than Microsoft whose focus is using AI to empower workers to do more sounds extremely unlikely.

People have gotten into their heads that researchers are good and corporations are bad in every case which is simply not true. OpenAI's mission is worse for humanity than Microsoft's.

>>dareob+ZA
Corporations literally are maximizing profit. Researchers at least can have other motives.

If Microsoft came up with a way of making trillion dollars in profit by enslaving half the planet, it kinda has to do it.

>>jampek+5C
This is a pretty simplistic and uneducated view on how big companies actually function.

>>joenot+DE
What's the educated view?

>>staunt+7M
No one I've ever had as an investor would be OK with me enslaving the planet for 1 Trillion dollars...

You're talking about investors and shareholders like they're just machines that only ever prioritize profit. That's just obviously not true.

>>insani+fN
Have you heard of e.g. East India companies? Or United Fruit?

Most of stock is not owned by individual persons (not that there aren't individuals that don't give a shit about enslaving people), but other companies and institutions that by charter prioritize profit. E.g. Microsoft's institutional ownership is around 70%.

>>jampek+nR
The presence of unethical people does not imply that all people are unethical, only that people are different. And that's my point. Reducing a company to "they will always maximize shareholder value" is incorrect - for many, many companies that is simply not true.

>>insani+OR
My point is that in the big picture ethics don't even matter, companies become something that transcend the individuals. Almost like algorithms that just happen to be implemented by humans (and exceedingly machines). There are no "they".

>>jampek+AW
That's just not true. Companies have individuals in charge with considerable power. Those individuals can absolutely make ethical decisions.

>>insani+YX
E.g. Henry Ford tried to make an ethical decision for the company to cut some dividends to benefit workers and make the products cheaper. It was ruled illegal. His mistake actually was to say that the benefits would about more than profit; arguing the investment on shareholder profit grounds could well have passed.

Probably safe to say Henry Ford had considerable power in Ford Motor Co compared most executives today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.